Air India would take a decision on Thursday whether to fly Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the plane that was grounded in Berlin or continue using the standby aircraft to ferry him back home after it receives a report on the engine problem-hit aircraft's airworthiness.
A team of engineers was dispatched to Berlin after a problem in one of the engines of the Air India One Boeing 747-400 plane was detected on Monday, forcing the carrier to fly an standby VVIP aircraft from Mumbai to Berlin in the early hours of yesterday.
"The engineers are carrying out boroscope inspection of the aircraft. Based on the outcome of the inspection, we will decide whether the Prime Minister should fly back home on Saturday in the same plane or the one which took him to Canada," sources said.
The airworthiness report is expected by Thursday, they said. The borescope inspection of the engine is conducted to evaluate its condition, and, if necessary, monitor under a cycle limitation, repair or remove it before a failure of the engine components. The aircraft is currently grounded at Berlin's Tegel airport.
Air India has five double-deck B747s in its fleet to fly the President and the PM. Air India One, a Boeing 747-400 had carried Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Delhi to Berlin after halts in Paris, Toulouse and Hannover.